o 0 - R o p F I L E 5 UR.GéNT! R.USH! T o most people, running errands may seem a menial, even dreary calling, but not to Irving Seiden, an enthusiastic, restless man of thirty- eight, who, as the vice-president and general manager of Mercury Service Systems, runs the largest messenger firm in New York. As he sees it, the day-and-night hustling of messengers through the city's streets constitutes the lifeblood of the metropolis. If New York were to be deprived of the serv- ices of these unsung and anonymous couriers, in the opinion of Seiden, who used to be one himself, it would become a ghost town-still big, of course, but with none of its characteris- tic tempo, efficiency, style. "The cli- max of most human negotiations is get- ting something from here to there, and in New York it's the messengers who do the getting," Seiden said not long ago, and his small brown eyes, behind thick glasses, lighted up with an em- battled, beady brightness. "You can knock yourself out on a job-making a sale, drawing up a contract, laying out a department-store ad-but what good is it gOIng to be if the thIng you've been sweating over doesn't reach the guy who wants it when he wants it? That's where we come in. But our work isn't all just run-of-the-mill. We get plenty of special assignments. For instance, suppose you're in charge of a television station and you've got your cameramen out on Long Island shoot- ing pictures of a search for a little girl who's lost in the woods \Vell, they've shot some, but they've got to hang around so the) can shoot more if anything new oreaks. Naturally, you're In a hurry to show the pictures they've already got, so you hire a heli- copter to fly out and bnng them in. "T ell, who's going off in that egg- beater with the pilot to find your cameramen and fly back hugging the film r .Lt\.nd who's going straight to the studio with it as soon as the pilot lands? .Lt\. messenger, of courSe. Or sa) you're a theatrical producer and you've got a play with a part that's perfect for a cer- tain actress You're not going to mazl the play to her, are you? That's no way to treat a leading lady. And you're not going to let on how badly you want her by delivering it yourself. The mes- senger again-there's your solution. Oh, messengers have been around for a long tIme. The ancient gods had ercury-or, if that's getting too near home, let's call him Hermes. .Lt\.nd then there was Leonidas, who needed that courIer at Thermopylae, and there were plenty more like that, right down through the ages. .Lt\.nd messengers are as essential as ever today-more so, even. Sure, there's the telephone and the telegraph, but the foot will always be the big thing. The tangibles-docu- ments, merchandise, objects of all kinds that, when they're needed, are needed badly-you can't send them by tele- phone. No, sir, they've got to be de- livered. Messenger boys, I tell you- they're the infantry of modern business. And, like the infantry, they're appreci- ated only when there's some big crisis." Several times a year, as an indication of his own respect for these battalions in mufti, Seiden drops in on one of Mercury's branch offices and, sitting down on a bench with whatever mes- sengers happen to be waiting there be- tween errands, does his best to engage them in uplifting shoptalk. It is usually hard going, though, because, as he sad- ly admits, few of the firm's messengers have any sense of mission about their work. .Lt\.bout half of them are middle- aged family men, working for Mercur) in their spare time to supplement the wages they receive as firemen, postmen, civil-service clerks, and so on, togeth- er with a scattering of older men, who either can't get along on their Social Security benefits or are plain lonely, and like to run errands because of the fleeting moments of sociability they can enjoy with a succession of receptionists and shipping-room foremen. The other half are youngsters, who are going to high school and work part time, or who have had all the formal educa- tion they want or can afford. Hard- ly any of these youths, Seiden knows, plan to remain in the messenger ou'\i- ness, but their oovious indifference to his chosen livelihood does not prevent him from attempting to instill a little professional pride into them as he sits there on the bench. "It was an uphill fight," Seiden confessed to a friend after one such expedition. "I tried to strike up a conversation by betting the boys they couldn't tell me what street in Manhattan runs north, south, east, and west. Not one of them knew. As a matter of fact, it's Pearl Street, and J told them so, but they didn't seem par- ticularly interested. Youngsters don't care about the city the way I did when I waS a messenger-and still do Care 29 '-- IfIII1Þ ...."". \ , - j e I ..., " " oß I rving Seiden about it? Hell, I love it! These kids- one errand's the same as another to them. I try to get some idea across to them of how important and exciting the job is, but I can't say I've had much success. Most of them j list clam up when I come around." In speaking highly of messenger work, Seiden, who is a six-footer with a shock of wavy brown hair graying somewhat at the temples, believes that, on the whole, he is presenting an 00- jective view, but he does not hesitate to admit that personal considerations are also involved. Over the twenty-one ) ears that he has commanded a division of Ne\\ York's small army of messen- gers-there are ninety-eight solvent messenger firms in the city, employing about three thousand men 'lnd hoys- his standard of living has rISen steadily. While the business is hardly on a level with banking or steel, it has flourished prodigiously In the last quarter of a century, and in 1957, New York's mes- senger-service companies had a com- bined gross income of about $6,000,- 000, on which they made a net profit, before taxes, of twenty per cent, or $1,200,000. (The size of Mercu! y's slice of this pie is indicated by the fact that the firm employs an average of three hundred messengers, or approxi- mately ten per cent of the whole.) "T ell as the business is doing, though, a reasonably safe assumption would be that it has yet to produce a millionaire. "Seiden and some of his colledgues have risen from rags, all right," I. S. Im- l11erl11an, the attorney for the Associa-